The Project

by Brian Falkner

  The morning was warm, and a mild breeze was at their backs, helping them along.

  “I read some of the book last night,” Luke said, pulling up alongside Tommy.

  “What did you find out?” Tommy asked.

  “I’m only about halfway through,” Luke said. “It’s all about Leonardo and his patron, Cesare Borgia, who was the son of the pope, and some other bloke named Heidenberg—Johann Heidenberg. It’s some type of a historical novel, but nothing happens, and it keeps not happening for page after page after page.”

  “What’s a patron?” Tommy asked.

  “Kind of like Leonardo’s boss, I think,” Luke said. “Some rich guy who could pay his wages while he did his work. Something like that.”

  “Is that all you found out?” Tommy asked.

  “Nah, bro,” Luke said. “The book goes on for ages about Leonardo’s paintings and his inventions, with heaps of details and measurements, but in amongst it there are things that will blow your mind. I dunno if it’s true, but if it is, then it’s almost unbelievable.”

  “Such as?”

  Luke paused a moment for dramatic effect, then said, “Rare-earth magnets.”

  Tommy coasted to the left as the path split off from the road, down toward a small wooden bridge. Ahead of them, a rusted railway bridge towered in the air, resting on dirty concrete pillars that were scrawled with graffiti.

  Tommy said, “Benfer must have made that up. Rare-earth magnets weren’t discovered until centuries after Leonardo died. How could he have known about them?”

  Luke had known he was going to ask that. It had been his first thought, too. “Tommy,” he said, “think about it. Rare-earth magnets weren’t discovered until nearly a hundred years after Benfer wrote the book. How could Benfer have known about them? Unless Leonardo really had discovered them hundreds of years earlier.”

  Tommy shook his head. “But then we’d have known about them since the fifteenth century.”

  “In the book, Leonardo hushes up the discovery. Keeps them a secret. He thinks they are too powerful ever to be made public.”

  “Too powerful?” Tommy mused. “You mean powerful like magnetic powerful.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Luke said.

  “Do you think that’s why Mueller wants the book?” Tommy asked. “Because of the magnet information? He got rich out of rare-earth magnets; there has to be a connection.”

  “Yeah, but what?” Luke asked. “And you know the nude dude?”

  “The Vitruvian Man?”

  “Yeah. Get this. There’s not just one. That picture, according to Benfer, is one of a whole series. They’re in the book with measurements and everything.”

  “Was there anything at all that would help explain what Mueller is up to?” Tommy asked.

  “No,” Luke said. “Not yet.”

  Something important was still scratching at the back of his mind, but he would have to do more reading to find out what it was.

  The Iowa City Municipal Airport was on the southeast side of the city, on the opposite side of the river from the downtown shopping area. It was a small, general aviation airport with two runways and a number of hangars.

  It was a fifteen-minute ride there from the bridge.

  They cycled past an old air force jet fighter that was mounted on a tripod. It was on an angle as if it had just taken off, zooming into the sky to do battle with unknown enemies. The road led through a grove of trees to another road, which looped in a big circle in front of the airport building.

  “Gotta be careful,” Luke said. “If they are here, we don’t want to be spotted.”

  “You bet,” Tommy said.

  They left their bikes on the parking lot side of the airport building, away from the large hangars that stretched out to the left.

  Luke stared through a wire mesh fence. A number of light aircraft were parked in neat rows.

  “Here,” Tommy said, and held out a pair of dark sunglasses for Luke. “We don’t want to be recognized.”

  Tommy looked so serious that Luke almost laughed, but instead he took them and put them on. Tommy put on a matching pair and then handed Luke one of his secret MP3 radios before slinging his own around his neck.

  “Can you hear me?” Luke asked into his radio.

  “Clear copy, Luke. One, two,” Tommy said, and added as an afterthought, “Over.”

  Luke crept to the edge of the building and peered around. Nobody was in sight. He waited for a moment or two, watching for any sign of movement, then motioned to Tommy. They slipped quietly around the front of the building. The single glass front door of the small terminal appeared to be locked, and no lights were on inside.

  “There’s a staircase around the other side,” Tommy said, “and a viewing platform on the roof.”

  That sounded like as good a place as any to be, so they moved as stealthily as they could around the far side of the building and up the staircase. It was made of metal, and their footsteps seemed to echo loudly around the deserted airport, but it might just have been Luke’s nerves that magnified them.

  They crept to the top and lay down on the platform. It was also made of metal, with crisscrossed indentations to make it less slippery. It wasn’t that comfortable to lie on, but it gave them a good view of the entire airport.

  “There,” Tommy said, pointing.

  The tail of a small jet plane stuck out from one of the hangars, gleaming orange in the low sun. There were letters, some kind of call sign, on the tail, but it was otherwise unmarked. The underbelly and the lower part of the tail were painted a deep blue.

  From their vantage point, they could see right into the hangar, and other than the plane, it seemed to be empty.

  Tommy was studying the plane through his dinky miniature binoculars. “That’s got to be the one,” he said. “Write down the registration number from the tail and we can look it up on the Internet later—see if it is Mueller’s plane.”

  Luke nodded but didn’t write the number down. He didn’t need to.

  A heavy mesh fence cut the tarmac off from the rest of the airfield. It extended to the corner of one of the hangars, blocking all entry to the runways. Another, smaller fence secured the hangars. It was lower, but the top was covered in sharp spikes.

  “It’s in hangar two,” Tommy said. “What do we do?”

  “I know what I’m going to do,” Luke said. “What’s the range of this radio?”

  “Long enough,” Tommy replied. “The length of a football field at least.”

  “Okay. I’m going to have a look in the hangar. You were right. We need some kind of evidence. Stay here with the binoculars. Keep a lookout. If you see anyone approaching the airport, or anyone moving around the hangars, let me know.”

  “Okay.” Tommy sounded slightly relieved. “But how are you going to climb the fence?”

  “I’m not,” Luke said.

  There was no need to. The viewing platform stretched out over the terminal building, over the tarmac and the fence.

  “Hang on,” Tommy said, and scrabbled around in his backpack. He handed Luke a rubberized tube, about a yard long.

  Luke shook his head, not understanding.

  “It’s a periscope,” Tommy said, and extended it to more than double its length before collapsing it back. “You can use it to look around corners without being seen.”

  Luke put it in his backpack; then he handed the backpack to Tommy and climbed up onto the safety rail, swinging one leg over and letting himself down with his arms until he was hanging on by his fingertips over the floor of the platform.

  Tommy looked worried, but Luke was confident he could make the jump.

  He pushed off to get clear of the window ledges and dropped to the concrete pad outside the terminal, rolling over like a paratrooper to spread the shock. His sunglasses went flying off. He collected them and tucked them into his T-shirt.

  Tommy tossed the backpack down to him, and Luke caught it neatly.

  “All clea
r?” he asked.

  Tommy’s voice came back through the earphones. “Roger that, over.”

  Luke skirted the mesh fence to the edge of the first building. The huge hangar doors were open, and inside were several aircraft: one was a small jet and the others were propeller aircraft. One of the prop planes had its front hood removed, exposing the engine.

  He could see a glass door on the far side of the hangar, so he slipped inside, rather than continue on the wide-open tarmac. He ducked underneath the wing of the jet, crossed the hangar floor, and dodged around the plane with the hood off. It was dim inside, and he kept an eye on the floor for anything that could trip him up and make a noise.

  At the far door, he stood against the wall and used Tommy’s periscope to examine the next hangar. Hangar two. From this angle, he couldn’t see the tail of Mueller’s jet.

  There was a matching glass door on the wall of hangar two, opposite him.

  “You still with me?” he asked.

  “Affirmative. Watching you like a hawk,” Tommy said in his ears.

  Luke clipped the periscope to his belt and opened the door slowly, checking left and right before sprinting across to the door of the next hangar. It was locked.

  To his left, across a wide concrete area, another big hangar was jam-packed with equipment, including a military-looking jet, painted yellow and blue.

  Luke could see someone moving around behind the jet. Whoever it was disappeared through a door at the back, and Luke slid along the wall to the front of hangar two. He used the periscope to look around inside.

  “All clear as far as I can see,” Tommy said from his vantage point. “But stay frosty, over.”

  Luke tucked the periscope away and eased around the corner. It was dark inside, and he waited a moment for his eyes to adjust.

  At the rear, a walled-off area created an office, which had windows looking out onto the hangar. On either side of it, staircases led up to a second level with another office.

  In the center of the hangar, some unmarked wooden crates were stacked in a pyramid. Each was about the size of a refrigerator lying on its side. Behind them, a large forklift sat silently.

  Luke wondered what was in the crates and thought of the chilling plans they had found in Mueller’s briefcase.

  Feeling a lot more nervous than he hoped he appeared, he strolled into the hangar. Nobody shouted. Nobody saw him. It was deserted.

  Luke looked at Mueller’s plane—if it was Mueller’s plane—and wondered what it would be like to be so rich that you could own a jet. Then he moved closer to the offices at the rear of the hangar. They were dark behind the windows, probably deserted. He tried the handle of the downstairs office door. It was locked.

  “All good,” Tommy said.

  Luke moved around to the left-hand staircase and put his weight carefully on the first step, listening for creaks or groans. It took his weight without complaining, so he cautiously moved upward.

  He was halfway up when Tommy’s voice came again, this time with urgency.

  “Freeze,” he said. “Danger close. A light just came on in the top office!”

  Luke froze.

  “Someone’s moving around in there,” Tommy said. “Stay where you are.”

  Luke flattened himself against the back wall of the staircase, knowing that would make no difference if someone emerged onto the landing above him.

  “Door just opened! Get out of there!” Tommy shouted.

  Luke could see the light spilling out of the doorway above. He turned and ran back down the stairs as quietly as he could and ducked around the front of the downstairs office.

  Directly above, he could hear footsteps on the landing.

  “It’s Jumbo,” Tommy said. “He’s right above you.”

  So it was Mueller’s hangar. Luke forced himself to breathe calmly.

  Tommy said, “He’s coming down! He’s coming down!”

  “Which stairs?” Luke whispered.

  “Left,” Tommy said, adding, “My left.”

  Luke padded to the right-hand staircase and flattened himself onto it, going up using his hands and feet as Jumbo went down the stairs on the other side. He got to the top and peered over the edge in time to see Jumbo unlock the lower office door and enter.

  “Keep an eye on him,” Luke whispered.

  He grabbed the periscope again and extended it fully, lying flat on the landing and pushing the end of it to the open doorway there. The lens gave him a clear view inside the office, which looked empty.

  “I think you should get out of there,” Tommy said.

  Luke ignored him, getting slowly to his feet and creeping to the door. It was a tiny office, with a sofa at one end, a small sink at the back, and a desk against one wall. From the arrangement of the cushions, it was clear that Jumbo had been sleeping there. Why? he wondered. The Central Hotel looked much more comfortable.

  He returned to the landing, careful not to make any loud footsteps that would be heard in the room below.

  He waited.

  Finally Tommy said, “Okay, he’s coming out. He’s going back up the right stairs.”

  Luke crept over to the left staircase and let himself down it as Jumbo climbed the other. He had reached the base without incident when Tommy came on the radio again. “A car has just pulled up outside the terminal.”

  What now? thought Luke.

  “I think it’s Mumbo.”

  “What’s he doing?” Luke asked.

  “Unlocking the gate,” Tommy said. “Danger close! Danger close! He’s going around the front of hangar one.”

  Luke looked around desperately. Where could he hide? The boxes? The stairs? There was nowhere he would be hidden from both the front and the back of the hangar.

  “He’s coming along in front of your hangar now.”

  Luke ran toward the jet, dropping and sliding underneath the main fuselage as footsteps entered the hangar in front of him.

  He wasn’t quite hidden, but the shadow of the jet made a dark pool on the hangar floor that swallowed him up.

  “Top office door has just opened,” Tommy said quietly. “Jumbo’s come back out.”

  Luke listened as Tommy kept up a commentary.

  “Mumbo’s walking in; he’s right alongside you now. Don’t move a muscle.”

  Luke didn’t, except for the one twitching in the back of his neck.

  “He’s looking at the jet. Jumbo’s coming down the stairs. They’re talking, I think.”

  They were arguing, but it was all in German, so Luke had no idea what they were saying.

  “Mumbo’s giving Jumbo the car keys,” Tommy said. “It seems like a sort of changing of the guard.”

  Changing of the guard meant there was something to guard, didn’t it?

  “Mumbo’s going into the lower office, and Jumbo’s heading out, back to the car, I think.… Okay, you’re clear. No, wait—I can see Mumbo moving around. Stay where you are.”

  There was a muffled noise from above. Luke looked up sharply at the underbelly of the plane that was hiding him.

  Keeping on the side of the craft that was away from the offices, he rolled out from beneath the jet and stood up. Luke pushed the periscope up the side of the plane to one of the oval windows. The cabin appeared to be empty. He moved forward as far as he could, but the wing was blocking his way, so he crept closer to the front of the plane and stretched the periscope out to one of the other windows.

  He put his eye back to the lens and couldn’t see anything for a moment. Something was blocking his vision. He thought it might be the shade and tried to move the periscope for a better look, but the thing suddenly moved, twisting around toward him.

  It was a person.

  For a fraction of a second, his mind wanted to tell him that it was Mueller, staring straight at him. But it wasn’t.

  Mueller didn’t have wild blond hair.

  Mueller didn’t wear black eyeliner. Mueller didn’t have a silver stud in the side of his nose.
r />   It was Ms. Sheck.

  “Ms. Sheck’s here,” Luke whispered. “She’s in the jet.”

  She didn’t seem to notice the narrow tube of the periscope outside the window.

  “You’re kidding,” Tommy said.

  “No, bro, I just looked right at her.”

  “What the heck is going on?” Tommy asked. He broke off and came back with “Jumbo is driving away, and Mumbo is coming out of the office. Stay frosty, over.”

  Luke stayed as still as he could. He had an idea. He took his cell phone and held its camera lens to the eyepiece of the periscope. He pressed the camera button two or three times, not knowing if it would work.

  “He’s going upstairs. He’s in the office. Door’s open, but I think you’re okay.”

  Luke put the periscope away in the backpack and started toward the hangar door.

  He almost made it, too.

  23. UNDER ARREST

  Luke heard the guttural shout behind him just as Tommy yelled in his ear, “He’s seen you! Run!”

  A flick of his head, and he saw Mumbo leaping down the stairs from the second-floor office.

  Luke ran. He had a small head start but not much. He ran from the hangar as fast as he had ever run in his life. His backpack bounced up and down, the straps cutting into his shoulders. The sunglasses flew from his T-shirt and disappeared somewhere behind him.

  “He’s at the bottom of the stairs!” Tommy informed him.

  The edge of the building flashed past, and he ducked into the gap between the two hangars. The smaller fence around the hangar area would be easier to climb than the larger mesh fence by the terminal building.

  “He’s out of the hangar!” Tommy yelled.

  Luke didn’t look back.

  He could feel each throb of his heart within the wall of his chest. His ears drummed with each heartbeat. He cut close to the far corner of the first hangar and hurtled toward the fence. The jagged spikes on top looked vicious. There was a D-shaped hole in the gate where the lock was.

  “He’s right behind you!” Tommy screamed.

  Luke flipped off his backpack as he sprang at the fence, throwing it up on top of the spikes. His foot found the D in the gate, and he launched himself up, scrabbling over the spikes, protected by his backpack. A hand brushed at his ankle, but he was over.